IYD: Hon Afeez Bello ‘Mabinuori’ Hails African Youths, Calls for New Ideas

IYD: Hon Afeez Bello ‘Mabinuori’ Hails African Youths, Calls for New Ideas.

Every year on the 12 of August, the global community comes together to celebrate International Youth Day. This annual occasion serves as a dedicated day of action and awareness, recognized by the United Nations(UN), to address important issues affecting the youth population across the globe.

The origin of International Youth Day can be traced to the Soweto Uprising in South Africa on June 16, 1976 which occurred in response to the government’s plans to impose the Afrikaans language (the primary language of the descendants of Dutch and other European settlers, as well as many mixed-race (e.g. Baster) living in South Africa and in Namibia) as a medium of instruction in schools for Black students. June 16 is now a public holiday in South Africa: observed as Youth Day, it pays tribute to the role young people had in the struggle for freedom. According to some Scholars, this event marked the beginning of youth day in South Africa before the United Nations decided to commemorate International Youth Day every year on August 12. This was based on a recommendation made by the World Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth in Lisbon to the UN General Assembly.

First, I commemorate the youths and students who were killed by police officers in the uprising. They have shown how committed they were in order to defend their heritage. Meanwhile, the youths are the product of society. We (youths) are what a society can’t stand without. Aside from the government, the youths are the ultimate deciders in any state and society. Youthfulness can transform the society from where it is to where it ought to be. If a society is progressing, kindly trace the secret behind it to the youthfulness, if it is other way round it is still the impact the youthfulness have on that society.

A good government can be measured, through youthful participation, provision for the youths and what the youths are benefiting from the government. It is hard for a system to develop without the impact of youths in it since youthful ideas thrive socio-economic development of any state and society.

Society that did not encourage the idea of the youth is a primitive society. Society that is less concerned with youthful affairs is an underdeveloped society. For a society to be great youthfulness ideas should be embraced and appreciated. It is universally acceptable that nobody knows tomorrow (which can only be predicted). But for a better tomorrow to come into reality the youths must be a participant in today’s affairs of the state and society.

Pupils in this part of the world have been fooled in their various schools that they are the “leaders of tomorrow” . The pity of it is that some of them couldn’t realized that “tomorrow” starts  once they ascend the level of youthfulness and most of them keep waiting till tomorrow is on the verge of elapsing.

Fellow African youths it is high time we shun social madness and corruption either online or offline; residential areas; towns and cities; schools and workplaces etc. We should deprive ourselves from Engaging in hard drugs, working as agents of violence, thinking about today alone since it kills, destroys and dehumanizes.
Let us determine our future by bringing up new ideas through a reasonable initiative which we can use to thrive African states and societies from primitive and imaginary worlds to scientific and technological worlds.

Happy belated International Youth Day!!!